One Step Out of Reach
by Emerald Embers
Summary: Chuck could see the future, but he still felt he was behind everyone else. Gabriel/Chuck, references to Michael/Lucifer, Chuck/Becky and Castiel/unnamed males


Chuck had given up understanding any of it months ago, even before he watched Castiel explode and spent the better part of a day scrubbing angel blood out of the carpet and picking molars out of his hair.

It was why he didn't question his dreams when the Trickster turned out to be the archangel Gabriel, and why he couldn't honestly claim to be surprised when said archangel appeared in his kitchen not long after the reveal.

Admittedly his knees buckled and he had to sit down so as not to collapse entirely, but at least he didn't piss himself, and even better, he didn't faint.

Plus, Gabriel was pretty handy in a kitchen. His blueberry pancakes were to die for. And Chuck couldn't help but feel relieved that for all Gabriel was immensely powerful, he only had about an inch of extra height. It was nice not having to crane his neck to look at a man he'd written about, for once.

.

Chuck figured it was kind of typical that Gabriel took a liking to him. It was even more typical that Becky took a liking to Gabriel's taking a liking.

"I think we should split up!" She'd announced, grinning and clapping her hands.

"But - I - what?" He'd replied, blindsided.

"Chuck, you're gorgeous, but an angel wants to have sex with you. I want to know _everything_!"

"I love you?" He'd tried. It was worth a shot.

"Nah," Becky said.

And so, he was left without a girlfriend but plus one angelic stalker and one overly interested ex.

.

Gabriel was only angelic in a literal sense, of course - divine, powerful, awesome, so on and so forth. He was still the Trickster at heart, and when Chuck woke up to his duvet exploding into rose petals while Gabriel watched from a nearby chair, grinning in a manner more appropriate for a serial killer than a potential suitor, he figured he was pretty much screwed.

Two weeks later, he was. Sex with an aeons-old creature who'd spent most of those aeons practising certainly had its perks. He'd lasted about three minutes. Then fifteen. Gabriel hadn't taken one orgasm as a hint to stop.

.

Gabriel's presence also meant occasionally getting answers when he asked questions, which made a refreshing change from Raphael's grim silences and Zachariah's snide ignorance. Sure, Gabriel was still a dick, but at least he was an _approachable _dick - conversations sometimes had more than one side, and Gabriel generally tended to listen without his expression conveying "you are the chewing gum stuck to my shoe". "You're an idiot, but a hot one" appeared to be his default expression.

It was mostly flattering, Chuck supposed.

.

Asking the angel questions meant learning that Michael and Lucifer, much as they referred to each as brother, didn't mean 'brother' in the sense of being related like Sam and Dean. At least, Chuck really, really hoped not. Gabriel had been somewhere in the middle of a story about wacky adventures in Heaven when Chuck's brain processed the meaning of "Michael and Lucifer were off getting to know each other so we took ourselves down to the garden -" and he found himself guiltily hoping the archangels only intended to use Sam and Dean's bodies for fighting.

It also meant learning that once upon a time Raphael did have a sense of humour, that every angel going had a sweet tooth - something Chuck would have to remember if Castiel ever visited again - and that Heaven's management really wasn't that hard to figure out if you bore in mind there were nine tiers and had a decent knowledge of at least five ancient languages. He would have to trust Gabriel's judgement on the lattermost item - angels tended to assume that given humans were often of similar or equal intelligence to them, they also ought to be able to grasp wisdom gathered across thousands of years.

.

Observing Gabriel in day to day life was just as much of an education as anything else - he loved music, and even if Chuck could only understand anything sung in English from the 16th century onwards, he had no doubt from the usual content of the songs that the entirety of Gabriel's repertoire was obscene, or at minimum, bawdy. A little more unsettling was the tendency to swap accents while singing - Gabriel claimed you couldn't sing an Irish song without an Irish accent, or a Norse epic without a Norse twang - and the fact that the accents also adapted with the changes of century. Really, Gabriel should have got into acting decades ago. He never aged, he could pull accents out of thin air, and he had a troubled family history. He was made for it.

He was also a colossal pervert, proving two theories for Chuck in one fell swoop - first, that sex was not only fun but accepted by Heaven, and second, that if you wanted to find someone with a taste for obscenity the best place to look was anywhere supposedly known for purity.

Between Zachariah's taste for slaughter, Gabriel's taste for gluttony and Castiel's taste for cock, Chuck was pretty much convinced that angels were the least pure creatures going. He was also convinced Heaven had something against him because it kept sending him visions of exactly what Castiel got up to in his spare time - it was bad enough when he thought Castiel was just a figment of his imagination, but now he had to _talk_ to the guy despite knowing where those lips had been.

.

Of course, it figured that Gabriel wasn't hanging around with him solely for the company, even if the company was very much appreciated - angels didn't sleep, or even tire, and Chuck had come to learn it actually wasn't possible to get bored of sex followed by breakfast in bed, or sometimes sex while having breakfast in bed if Gabriel brought in fruit or yoghurt.

He was actually _eating_ fruit and yoghurt, and that alone proved Gabriel's impressive people-handling skills.

Chuck sat at the table for dinner, papers temporarily swept aside so Gabriel could lay out candles and napkins and generally make Chuck rather suspect he was about to get an engagement ring. It was no real surprise when Gabriel sat at the table and leaned over, taking his wrist; it was a surprise when Gabriel opted to fasten a watch around it. "What's this for?"

"Insurance," Gabriel said. "If someone turns up on your doorstep looking confused and asking for that watch, give it to them."

"Why?"

"Plans within plans," Gabriel replied, grinning. "It's the only reason I've mostly stayed alive these last few years."

.

Dinner, as it turned out, was Gabriel's way of apologising ahead of time for the vision Chuck found himself waking from the next morning, sore and sweating and miserable. He _hated_ Lucifer's appearances in his dreams, always expected Lucifer to turn around and throttle him - because really, _Constantine_ wasn't a movie anyone should watch when they were already having nightmares about angels and demons.

He turned over, knew Gabriel would be there, pressed his hand over the patch on Gabriel's chest he'd just seen stabbed. "Oh God," Chuck said, and Gabriel smirked, rolling his eyes, even though the expression in them was still visibly unsettled.

"Am I dead yet?"

"That's not funny," Chuck snapped.

"It is a little funny," Gabriel replied, before shrugging. "But, prophecy. What can you do?"

.

The answer was nothing, and when Gabriel didn't come back from 'work' a fortnight later, Chuck found the Jack Daniel's in the cupboard a lot more appealing than the raspberries in the fridge.

.

He should have known, having written the bastard enough times before, that if a stake wouldn't keep him down, if holy oil wouldn't keep him trapped for more than an hour, if an angel's sword could be faked once before already, Gabriel wouldn't let a little thing like death get in his way.

When he opened his door to a stunningly beautiful woman and an equally handsome man, both dark-skinned and dark-haired, one glaring daggers and the other looking simply dazed, he hadn't entirely expected an announcement from the glaring one of "This belongs to you" followed by her disappearance.

Not walking off disappearance either.

Holy fuck, that had been Kali.

The dazed man looked down at his forearm and Chuck blinked, remembering, took the watch off his wrist and offered it to him. "I'm not sure why, but I'm supposed to give this to you," Chuck said.

"I'm supposed to ask," the man replied, looking confused, before taking it from him and wrapping it around his own wrist, fingers resting against the face of it. "Oh, and I'm supposed to tell you not to look."

"What, wh-" Chuck cut himself off and shut his eyes, covered them with his hands as well for good measure, felt the blast of heat and light and, finally, slim fingers closing around his wrists and pulling his hands back down. "What the Hell just happened?"

"Honey, I'm home." Gabriel said, grinning through new lips and new eyes. "Like the new suit?"

Chuck might have been a writer, but it didn't mean he couldn't be speechless.

"Don't worry, Kali's a creator. The body's, anyway. We just needed the watch to give back all the winning personality."

Still no words for that one.

"You owe me dinner. I don't die every day."

"Son of a bitch," Chuck said.

"No doubt about it," Gabriel replied, before leaning down and kissing him.

.

Chuck wouldn't be forgiving him for that scare anytime soon, but he had to hand it to Gabriel. He had style.

And another five inches on him in height.

Bastard.

.

The End


End file.
